Combat Mechanics
There is a lot that is unclear about combat mechanics in Galaxy Online II. There are quite a few unintuitive facets. This combat mechanics guide is intended to be comprehensive and detailed, including during what steps commanders trigger. Effective Stack Effective Stack determines how many ships in a stack can attack ''. (A full stack of 3000 ships don't actually all attack at once. A stack of 500 (less than maximum) has an effective stack of 500.) Frigates, Cruisers, and Battleships have a base stack of 1100, 1000, and 900 respectively. This means, in the late game, where Frigates are almost as big as Battleships in terms of volume, Frigates can actually make more attacks per stack. (Be sure to do the math yourself.) Commander Cards are where the real action regarding the effective stack comes in. The more stars a commander has, the larger their effective stack. This is why Commanders are the single biggest upgrade (and most expensive) in the game. See effective stack for commander progression by type and star. Combat Steps This focuses on the steps when one fleet stack attacks another. #'Attacker fires.' Calculate number of hits. The number of attack modules per ship multiplied by the number of ships in effective stack and multiply by your weapon hit chance. Hit chance is influenced by weapon (see wiki article), agility stat (defender ship+mods), dodge (defender cc), weapon steering (attacker) and accuracy (attacker) affects hit chance. In rough approximations to give you an idea, every 1 agility reduces hit chance by 4% while 1 steering increases hit chance by 4%. Then every 12 dodge reduces hit chance by 1% and vice versa with accuracy. Chance to hit can be >100% although the game does not show it. #'Interceptors Fire'. Intercepts lower the number of hits. Powered Pulse Cannon, Panis, and Ship-based Weapon can intercept incoming missiles or ship-based weapons. Contrary to popular belief, these modules do not have an intercept chance for every incoming missile. Rather, one PPC fires and has a 55% chance to shoot down a single incoming attack. Interception is influenced by intercept chance of defense module (varies by module, ship-based, 20% with tech) and intercept chance of attacking module (reduces # interceptions). Defending commander's dodge and ship defense stat are believed to impact this, but this is unconfirmed. #'Calculate damage'. Every projectile not intercepted deals damage. This is simple determined by randomly generating a number in its range. Weapon bonus damage should be added. For simplicity, due to the large number of hits, you may wish to use average damage value. Double-hits, criticals, etc. all take place here. Damage is increased or reduced due to ship armor type and attacking damage type. # '''Damage Negation'. Damage is negated by all non-EOS shield defense systems. Heat Diffusion Shield, the other three damage specific shields, Daedalus Control System, and Energy Armor, reduce damage dealt. This is critical, because this reduces scatter and piercing effects. (Note: It is believed Energy Armor and Daedalus only affect damage attributed to the hull. This would be inconsistent with armor type reducing/increasing damage to shields. Unconfirmed.) #Shield Penetration. Ballistics and directional and some commanders can pierce shields. Unclear if this happens before/after/or in conjuction with Damage Negation. #'Deal damage to shields'. EOS triggers and has 30% chance to absorb double damage by Damage Mitigation tech. Only the effective stack triggers EOS for defense. However, the combined shield total from all 3000 ships can absorb damage. *Due to recent patches, I believe EOS now reduces scatter. (Unconfirmed). # Assign damage to hull. If damage is dealt to shields and there is damage left, the damage is then assigned to the ship's structure. Divide damage by individual ship's structure and the stability %, round down. This is the number ships destroyed. (Note: It is believed Energy Armor and Daedalus only affect damage attributed to the hull. If so, these reductions would happen here.) #'Calculate Scatter Damage'. Based on weapon type, technology, and Sandora, other stacks take scatter damage. Scatter damage cannot by absorbed or mitigated by defenses, which is one of its key advantages. It reduces shields and then hull, as necessary. *Note that Tiamat (chrome armor) does not take increased scatter damage from missiles due to its hull type. This is only factored in when the attack is made against a stack. *(Damage Mitigation, if triggered, reduces scatter damage.) Scatter allows ballistics and missiles to whittle away at massive shielding. With Exaltation missile tech, missile ships with higher total structure than target deal 54% scatter, which means 432% unpreventable bonus damage! hit chance formula Intercept Chance Formula Damage Dealt Formula Damage to Shields Formula Damage to Hull Formula Stability In short, stability makes it harder for ships to be destroyed. Category:Ship Design Category:Walkthrough